e, when I was milking a cow, I asked Master Ousley, 'Master Ousley,
will you do me a favor?'

"He said in his drawl, 'Of course I will.'

"'Take me to McCracken County,' I said. I didn't even know where
McCracken County was, but my sister was there. I wanted to find my
sister. When I reached the house where my sister stayed, I went through
the gate. I asked if this was the house where Mary Meriwether lived. Her
mistress said, 'Yes, she's in the back. Are you the girl Mr.
Meriwether's looking for?" My heart was in my mouth. It just seemed I
couldn't go through the gate. I never even saw my sister that time. I
hid for a while and then went back.

"We didn't have any churches. My master would come down Sunday morning
with just enough flour to make bread. Coffee, too. Their coffee was
parts of meal, corn and so on. Work all week and that's what they had
for coffee.

"We used to sing, 'Swing low, sweet chariot'. When our folks sang that,
we could really see the chariot.

"Once, Jim Ferguson, a colored man, came to teach school. The white
folks beat and whipped him and drove him away in his underwear.

"I wanted so hard to learn to read, but I didn't even know I was free,
even when slavery was ended.

"I been so exhausted working, I was like an inch-worm crawling along a
roof. I worked till I thought another lick would kill me. If you had
something to do, you did it or got whipped. Once I was so tired I
couldn't work any more. I crawled in a hole under the house and stayed
there till I was rested. I didn't get whipped, either.

"I never will forget it--how my master always used to say, 'Keep a
nigger down' I never will forget it. I used to wait on table and I heard
them talk.

"The only fun we had was on Sunday evening, after work. That was the
only chance we got. We used to go away off from the house and play in
the haystack.

"Our folks was so cruel, the slaves used to whisper 'round. Some of them
knew they was free, even if the white folks didn't want 'em to find out
they was free. They went off in the woods sometimes. But I was just a
little kid and I wasn't allowed to go around the big folks.

"I seen enough what the old folks went through. My sister and I went
through enough after slavery was over. For twenty-one long years we were
enslaved, even after we were supposed to be free. We didn't even know we
were free. We had to wash the white people's feet when they took their
shoes off at night--the men and w